stuartw2112 wrote: When Dave

[Anonymous]

stuartw2112 wrote:

When Dave and I first left the party, we often repeated a few predictions of our own: that an upturn in the class struggle and improved prospects for revolution would not come out of nowhere, or out of party propaganda, but out of a crisis of capitalism. We further predicted that following the first signs of this upturn, or of the emergence of a revolutionary or popular movement, the party would condemn it within seconds of hearing about it. Our predictions were fulfilled.

I disagree with this Stuart. For a start I think it’s delusional to refer to Occupy as either revolutionary or popular – it has no real agenda or program nor even an underpinning set of ideas other than vague demands, which rules out the revolutionary aspect and as for popular? I think most working people honestly know more about Sheryl Cole’s hair than they do Occupy, despite the press coverage most of which was from a biased and sniping capitalist owned media.

The Party so far as I have read or heard has neither condemned nor ‘supported’ the movement such as it is but has attended and taken part in the actual protests and online, as well as discussed the events in the Standard and this forum and the Blog. As stated time and again, The Party as a group can do no more than put our view of the world and how we see as ‘The Answer’ as you sneeringly put – what group does anything else? Party members as individuals may well have done more or less, but that is their perogative.

The long and the short of it is, in this incredibly long winded discussion (28 fecking pages lads?!) is that Occupy has and is fizzling out, nothing has changed really and the working people of this country are still toiling and paying their bills and trying to make ends meet – for us, the working class, this movement has solved nothing, provided no answers we didn’t know already and has given no indication of being anything other than mere protest with the vaguest of demands hoping to make the current system ‘a bit fairer’.

Squatting never cured the homeless problem, millions marching did not save the mines, and Occupy will not change the world. So, just to be fair, I will make my own predictions: Tomorrow, and the day after, the capitalists will still own the means of production, we’ll still own nothing. They’ll still be the 1% and we will still be the 99% and in a few years time this will all be another chapter of protest along with the Poll Tax, the Miners, the dockers, the Ford Women and the rest.

Is the SPGB any better? Maybe not. All we can do, and all the Party can do, is make more socialists and put forward the answer as we see it. Perhaps you’re right, perhaps it is probably futile, it may never change things, perhaps the war is already lost but then so is pointless protest after protest all claiming to be ‘revolutionary’ – they are, but in a circular sense only. As is this discussion.